https://www.meforum.org/61173/turkey-and-qatar-love-in-bloom?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=32ec283bff-MEF_Bekdil_2020_07_01_07_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-32ec283bff-33723125&goal=0_086cfd423c-32ec283bff-33723125&mc_cid=32ec283bff&mc_eid=bb334ea86b
Few Qataris who fought the Ottoman colonialists to gain their independence in 1915 and end the 44-year-long Turkish rule in the peninsula would ever have imagined that their grandchildren would become Turkey’s closest strategic allies.
Qatar, a tiny but extremely wealthy sheikdom, has a constitution based on sharia (Islamic religious law), while Turkey’s constitution is strictly secular (officially, if not in practice). In Qatar, flogging and stoning—unthinkable in Turkey—are legal forms of punishment. In Qatar, apostasy is a crime punishable by death, while in Turkey it is not a criminal offense.
But the ideological kinship between the two Sunni Muslim countries, which is based on passionate political support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (and a religious hatred of Israel), seems to have produced a bond that threatens Western interests.In 2014 Turkey and Qatar signed a strategic security agreement that gave Ankara a military base in the Gulf state, which is already home to the largest US air base in the Middle East (al-Udeid). Turkey stationed some 3,000 ground troops at its Qatari base in addition to air and naval units, military trainers, and special operations forces.